LEGOLAND

LEGOLAND Florida Resort is one of currently nine LEGOLANDS in the theme park chain operated by Merlin Entertainment (not LEGO!). The next LEGOLAND park is set to open in New York in 2019. The LEGOLAND we went to for three days is located in Winter Haven, FL and it opened in 2011. It has more than 50 rides (including roller coasters), shows, restaurants, and shops. It even has a water park and a botanical garden.

Beetle Bounce

Power Towers

Power Towers

Land of Adventure: Safari Trek

Meeting Emmet, “Everything is AWESOME!”

We bought an annual pass because that made the most sense for us. If you want to know the math of that decision, click here. The park is spread out over 145 acres and is split into different lands. To name a few: MiniLand, the Model Village, the World of Chima, Wild Woods, Knight’s Kingdom, Imagination Zone (sign up for Lego Mindstorms to power lego robots!), Pirate’s Cove, the Water Park, and Cypress Gardens (where you can see an enormous Banyan tree that was planted in 1939.

Imagination Zone: Build & Test

Imagination Zone: Build & Test

Imagination Zone: Build a fish

Imagination Zone: Build & Test

Imagination Zone: Build & Test

Lego Star Wars

LEGOLAND is for lego lovers. It is geared for kids aged 2 to 12. Is it Disney? No. LEGOLAND is not Disney, and it doesn’t try to be. Think of LEGOLAND like a great big fair where everything is made out of lego that’s been hit with “The Cragle.” It’s a little crazy, to be honest, if you’re someone like me who isn’t really into lego…because people who are into lego are like people who are into Star Wars. I overheard two grown men talking about vintage lego that they see posted on ebay and how disgusting it is that anyone with a set like that would dream of selling it for profit. The conversation lasted for longer than 15 seconds and that amazed me on several levels (so I wandered over to Cypress Gardens and got lost in the serene silence of green stuff growing wild—but that’s another post).

LEGOLAND offers something for everyone from kids (my three kids are ages 6 to 11) to adults.

Miniland Florida: shipwreck

Miniland New York

Miniland Florida: Kennedy Space Center

Miniland: Star Wars

We visited in February and the sun was hot and we loved it. There were reasonable crowds and no lineups. The kids could get off a ride and go right back on. LEGOLAND also has special events spread out throughout the year, like LEGO Batman Movie days in March where you can watch master builders construct a 7-foot tall Joker character, participate in a scavenger hunt, and meet the real LEGO Batman! Or LEGO Star Wars days in May where you can walk around in costume and see the 1.5 million bricks that went into making some famous Star Wars scenes in MINILAND.

Lego Batman

Heartlake City

The World of Chima

Lego City: Ford Driving School

Some of our favourite things to do: command a lego robot with programming in Mindstorms (Imagination Zone), watch Brick Beard’s Pirate (water ski) show, take in a view of the entire park from Islands in the Sky ride, and take a breather in Cypress Gardens.

Imagination Zone: Mindstorms

Pirate Cove: Brick Beard’s Show

Pirate Cove: Brick Beard’s Show

Pirate Cove: Brick Beard’s Show (after show photos)

Want to know why we bought 5 annual passes? Here’s why:

A 1-day pass costs $93 a day. That same 1 day pass drops to $73 a day if you book your tickets online two or more days in advance. But! If you buy a 2-day ticket two or more days in advance, your tickets are $93 total for the two days (or $113 if you don’t buy two days in advance—so buy your tickets online before you go). $93 means each day costs $46.50. A two-day pass is a no-brainer, especially since it takes 2 days to comfortably do everything in the park. We bought an annual pass. Here’s why: There are three levels of annual passes: Awesome, Awesomer, and Awesomest. As a family of five, 4 of us bought the Awesome pass. That costs $99 if you are a Floridian or $129 if you are non-Floridian and that gives unlimited access to LEGOLAND, including the waterpark (which is a separate charge of about $20 a day), and a bunch of other unlimited admissions to other Florida attractions, like the Sea Life Aquarium in Orlando and Madame Tussauds Orlando. Since we were visiting LEGOLAND before the waterparks opened in March and since we thought we might make it back before year’s end, paying just $36 more than a one-day pass gets us as many days as we like. One of us bought the Awesomer pass at $149 because that pass comes with free parking. Parking costs $17 a day at the gate (or $15 if you buy in advance online). That means that if we go for 3 days, which we are going to because we bought annual passes, we will save $45 right there in parking, which takes the cost of the Awesomer pass from $149 to $104 and less than that for every day you show up and save $15 in parking. So, $150 + ($129 x 4) = $665. That works out to $13 more per ticket than we would have paid if our family of five had marched up to LEGOLAND and bought five 2-day passes + waterpark + parking for both days. Done.

A full day at LEGOLAND, leaving with long shadows…

Our blog post is a snapshot of all there is to see and do at LEGOLAND. The best place to plan your day is to visit the officialLEGOLAND Florida Resortwebsite.

24 Comments

Evie
on February 16, 2017 at 10:12 pm

LEGOLAND was so much fun! There were lego characters everywhere. They were so cool! Most were bad guys and superheroes like Batman, Darth Vader, Darth Maul, Superman, and lots more. At LEGOLAND my family and I went to a Brick Beard’s Pirate Show. We saw water ski acrobatics and we saw a water ski pyramid where everybody stood on each others’ shoulders—it was really cool! Oh, and we got to see a lego shark. It was ginormous with big teeth. My sister and I signed up for a lego robotics class too. We programmed Bluetooth robot rovers made out of lego to move around using direction commands. We used a ruler and a protractor to measure the distance and angles to gather the little boulders. After we collected the rocks we manoeuvred the rovers up a ramp and grabbed another smaller robot. We also built lego cars and raced them down ramps—I won twice with my weird looking triangular-shaped car. 🙂 My favourite part of the park was probably the Power Towers Ride, We sat in chairs and pulled ourselves to the top of a tower and then let go to drop back down again. We raced each other up and down a bunch of times. It was so much fun! 🙂

It looks like you had fun in Legoland. You must be having more fun than US! How high did the rollercoaster go?
It would be nice to visit the gardens.

We have been having fun, too. We went skating and then we had hot chocolate. We had a party on Valentine’s Day – we have your valentine’s waiting for you. We got a lot of snow! We made some big snow balls to build a fort. We played on the big snow hills. We even rolled down the hills.

I did have so much fun, but I missed you guys. I wish I hadn’t missed the Valentines Party!

Sarah
on February 22, 2017 at 7:15 pm

Hi Evie It’s olivia it looks like you are having so much fun. I miss you so much. I would love going to Lego land. What was your funiest thing you made?. Where are you now? I like all the pictures especially the one with the Lego ice cream your so funny.

Hi Evie sounds like your having fun! Can’t wait to see you at school! Tell Grey I say hi and have fun! Evie your missing out really fun stuff we are doing! You missed basketball sign ups! Lego land looked really fun! Can you tell me where lego land it’s in florida .